Shannon Larson

Design has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Sitting in my grandmother’s attic above the cafe’ she owned in our small rural community, I’d spend hours encompassed by periodicals archived from the grand cafe media wall. It was unknowingly my connection to world news, agriculture, fashion, pop culture and architecture. This and how people live have become my source of inspiration for design.

Upon graduating high school, I pursued a career outside the arts but managed to take several college art classes including, charcoal drawing, sketching, painting, sculpting and pottery.

Several years and two children later, I enrolled back into college and graduated with an A.A.S degree in Interior Design. It was a FIDER accredited college and a grueling but exhilarating three years. Having roughly 8 years of college under my belt, my dream career was finally under way. I acquired an internship my last semester of school and was hired full-time at a residential design firm in Minneapolis. The Principal and owner of Pappas Design, Mary Jane Pappas and her staff, became the perfect model for who I wanted to become as a designer.

Inspiration for design continues to be deeply rooted in the experiences of my past. The perception of life growing up on a three block main street across from my grandmother’s café, became my building block of study in which to design spaces for those who dwell in it. I was quiet and observed people and their interactions, where they socialized, congregated and how they moved about the space. I became quick to study the space I was in – I was designing.

This awareness of space remains with me and allows for proper design programming and a creative, thoughtful design process. It allows for relationships and for the people dwelling in that space, a creative and synergetic energy-a formula for great design.